As the annual LGBTQ Pride parades took place last weekend, a small collective of LGBT organizers with pro-Palestinian views attracted international controversy when they were accused of anti-Semitism by an employee of a pro-Israel advocacy group. Chicago’s chapter of the annual Dyke March, an annual march of mostly lesbians held since 1981, and nationally since 1993, was subjected to a wide-reaching smear campaign initiated by Laurel Grauer who alleged that the Dyke March either ejected Jews or individuals carrying Jewish symbols from the march out of apparent anti-Jewish prejudice.

Grauer is a manager of programs and operations for A Wider Bridge, a nonprofit that organizes LGBT-themed trips to Israel and sanitizes Israel’s image as a human rights violator by coordinating pro-Israel support within American LGBT communities. Her accusations were repeated in multiple media outlets.

But organizers and eyewitnesses gave a different story. According to individuals present at the march, many paraders wore kippas, Stars of David, and other visible symbols of the Jewish faith without being asked to leave. March organizers clarified that three individuals, including Grauer, were asked to leave after repeatedly expressing support for Israel and Zionism. During the march, Grauer and others attempted to change protest chants to remove the word “Palestine.” This rhetoric, in conjunction with their use of rainbow flags with superimposed Star of David that loosely resembled the Israeli flag, sparked an initial discussion. During that two-hour discussion, Grauer and the others reaffirmed their support for Zionism, prompting the marchers to ask her and her party to leave.

March organizers repeatedly clarified that Jewish symbols were welcome, so long as they did not signify support for the Israeli government. Witnesses corroborated this version of events. Text message screengrabs published by the Dyke March organizers show that Grauer was aware of the march’s stance on supporting Palestinian liberation and she may have anticipated a confrontation; those messages reaffirm that the Dyke March was permissive of Jewish pride flags provided they were not used to signify support for Israeli policy.

A Wider Bridge has a history of issuing allegations of anti-Semitism against its critics, including a 2016 incident in which its volunteers falsely claimed that leftists had protested a Jewish prayer service they had organized, when in fact the protesters targeted a pro-Israel lobbying reception.

The Chicago Dyke March takes a strict policy regarding racism, and holds that Zionism is a form of white supremacy, citing Israel’s legalized discrimination against Palestinians and the forced displacement of Palestinians to build Israeli settlements. In particular, the Dyke March emphasized in a statement released this week, its “priority is to ensure a safer space for those who are most marginalized” and that the March “welcome[s] and include[s] people of all identities, but not all ideologies.” Among those people who are most marginalized, of course, are Palestinians, Arabs, and immigrants who are queer.

Palestinians who are queer have repeatedly expressed their position that Palestinian queers face different challenges that are often misunderstood by those involved in the Western LGBT movement. Among the most jarring of those challenges is the fact that Israeli intelligence agencies have blackmailed gay Palestinians into working as informants, lest they be “outed”. Members of the Muslim community, regardless of nationality, have also pointed out that they are often forced to pick between their faith and sexual orientation. The cynical use of LGBT rights in anti-Muslim discourse has further contributed to the erasure of Muslim queers. In addition, LGBT immigrants who may qualify for asylum for persecution suffered because of their status as LGBT persons are often forced to go into graphic detail about their trauma in front of judges and asylum officers, and therefore rarely have the luxury of choosing when to come out; as a result, they often lack the communal support systems that others have and may be compelled to simply stay undocumented and closeted as they remain vulnerable to deportation.

All of these challenges are exactly why the universalist and inclusive message underpinning the Chicago Dyke March’s support for Palestinian rights and stringent opposition to state violence and oppression are so important–and why A Wider Bridge’s smear campaign is so dangerous. While the United States has made considerable progress in opening up public spaces for LGBT persons from some backgrounds, LGBT persons from other backgrounds–like those at the Dyke March–remain in a very vulnerable and precarious state. Using bogus allegations of anti-Semitism to sink the Dyke March or intimidate it into bending strict policies designed to ensure inclusion for people from marginalized backgrounds is an outright attack on one of the few spaces where those individuals can be queer and proud.

A Wider Bridge’s smear campaign closely resembles the objectionable and challenged practices of other organizations that have co-opted LGBT pride marches. In New York City, twelve demonstrators from No Justice No Pride were arrested for holding a sit-in to block an NYPD-sponsored pride march, pointing to the NYPD’s violence against black, brown and indigenous communities and citing police discrimination against black, brown, and indigenous LGBT persons. In Washington D.C., members of No Justice No Pride were arrested in a separate protest against Wells Fargo’s sponsorship of a pride event, citing Wells Fargo’s investment in the Dakota Access Pipeline through the Sioux Standing Rock Territory.

While all of these controversies differ, all of them highlight the challenges that members of marginalized groups face in the context of LGBT pride marches that seek to normalize state violence and corporate complicity in it. The use of LGBT discourse to pinkwash Israeli state violence–and A Wider Bridge’s slanderous allegations against those who do not comply–are simply one part of an ugly trend to turn pride events from a commemoration of the sacrifices of marginalized peoples into an effort to sanitize their marginalization.

Help Fight Islamophobia at SFSU. Support Palestinian and Muslim Faculty Member Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi and the Students at San Francisco State University

They disagreed with her work on Palestine, so they plastered posters across campus calling her a terrorist and a Jew-hater.

Professor Rabab Abdulhadi of the Arab Muslim and Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program has filed several grievances against San Francisco State University for the hostile and unsafe work and study environment for Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs on campus. Your generous donation will contribute to the legal defense fund against Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians at SFSU campus and to supporting the AMED Studies program against destruction.

The Story

Since 2010, Dr. Abdulhadi has been working as a one-person program acting as faculty, staff, and fighting against overt and covert manifestations of Islamophobia and racism against Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians on SFSU campus. Over the past year, SFSU campus has been subjected to multiple attacks by David Horowitz who has been identified as a, “driving force of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black movements” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On October 14, 2016 and May 3, 2017, students found in plain view dozens of racist, bullying posters that target student advocates for justice in/for Palestine, including members of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program, the only program to focus on Arab and Muslim communities in the US and center social justice and Palestinian history, culture and social movements.

One year later, the SFSU administration has yet to respond to protect Dr. Abdulhadi and the targeted students. It is right to have the freedom to advocate for justice in/for Palestine. It is right to feel safe on campus. It is wrong to call someone a terrorist or an anti-Semite just because you don’t agree with them. It is wrong to intimidate students. It is wrong to stop education.

These relentless bullying attacks by several right-wing pro-Israel groups such as David Horowitz, Canary Mission, AMCHA, Campus Watch, Stand With US, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Middle East Forum and the Zionist Organization of America are deliberate. They seek to smear Dr. Abdulhadi’s reputation and damage her standing as a scholar, teacher and public intellectual and destroy the AMED Studies program in the process.

SFSU Administration needs to fulfill its commitment to Dr. Abdulhadi and AMED communities and institutionally support the building of the AMED Studies program as a viable and stable program to educate the university community on and off campus and challenge Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians on SFSU campus.

The grievances have already been filed in March of 2017. It will soon move into the hearing phase of the grievances.
Your generous donation will contribute to the legal defense fund against Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians at SFSU campus and to supporting the AMED Studies program against destruction.

By International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Jerusalem, occupied Palestine

Seventy people gathered in the Sur Baher neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem for a communal solidarity Iftar on the rubble of the home of Ashraf and Islam Fawaqa.

The Fawaqa home was one of nine Palestinian homes and 3 stores that were demolished on May 4th, 2017 in occupied East Jerusalem. Home demolition is a strategic policy of Israel that is integral to their Judaization of Jerusalem and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Nurredin Amro, who is blind and the principal of Siraj Al Quds School for Inclusive Education spoke about his family being awakened at four in the morning in March 2015 when their house in Wadi Joz was being demolished while they were inside. “It was the most terrible thing that I have ever experienced. A home demolition is the demolition of a person. It is not just stone that is destroyed it is the demolition of the human spirit.”

Nora Lester Murad, one of the volunteer organisers of the event stated: “We want to express our solidarity with the tens of thousands of Palestinian families whose homes have been demolished, sealed, or who live every day under the imminent threat of demolition. We feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of need these families have, by the apparent impossibility of stopping future demolitions, and by our own sense of powerlessness. It seemed the least we could do to show these families – families who are on the frontline of the continuing Nakba – that they have allies.”

Islam and Ashraf talked about the uncertain future of their young family who now live in a temporary caravan on the site where their home once stood, even this caravan which is insufficient to keep their children, including their new born baby, warm in the winter, is in danger of being demolished.

Munir Nusseibeh, of the Al Quds Community Action Center, explained the excuses used by the occupation authorities for demolishing Palestinian homes. “Some homes are demolished because the occupation authorities claim they have no building permits, but it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian resident of occupied East Jerusalem to receive a permit. The permit system is setup to benefit the Israeli settlers and not to serve the needs of the Palestinians of the city. Some homes are demolished as collective punishment because one of the members of the family is accused of a crime. But no matter the excuse, home demolitions by the occupying power are illegal under international law.”

At the time of the call for the evening prayer food donated by members of the community as well as local businesses, such as the Jerusalem Hotel, La vie Cafe from Ramallah, The Tanour and Abu Zahra supermarkets was shared. At least for this evening the families were not alone in facing the uncertainty of their future.

AUTHOR: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

DATE: APRIL 14, 2017

Israeli Border Police occupy the area around the Shuhada Street checkpoint. The concrete barrier was also moved further up the road recenty by Israeli forces, extending their control in H1.

Since the evening of April 10th, 2017, Israeli forces have imposed increased restrictions on the Palestinians of al-Khalil as colonial settlers and Israeli tourists celebrate Pesach – or Passover – across the city. So far, homes have been occupied, checkpoints closed, and Palestinian children attacked with teargas during the week-long holiday. Preparations for the festival began early in the week as an increasing number of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles arrived in Hebron.

Since the beginning of the week, an increased number of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles have arrived in al-Khalil.

Israeli soldiers gather in al-Khalil

Consequently, Palestinians have faced increased delays and harrassment from soldiers, both the areas of H1, officially under full Palestinian civil and security control, and H2, which is under full Israeli control – the two areas into which al-Khalil has been divided since this Ibrahimi Mosque massacre of 1997 by a Jewish settler. The number of ID checks, bag searches, and body checks have increased across the city’s checkpoints as well as in the Old Town, as a result of Israeli military incursions, both day and night. Israeli forces also entered the homes of Palestinians living on Shuhada Street – for whom the only entry is through the rear of the house – before occupying the roofs of the houses for hours at a time.

An Israeli soldier aims his rifle at Palestinians making their way past the boys’ school

A Palestinian is subject to a body check by Israeli soldiers outside Mutannabi boys’ school, H2.

Israelis and colonial settlers celebrate outside the kindergarten on Shuhada street, while Palestinian children are made to pass through a military checkpoint every day on their way to school.

A group of Palestinian boys are questioned by Israeli Border Police in the souk, al-Khalil’s Old Town.

On Wednesday 12th April Israeli forces closed and barricaded the Ibrahimi mosque and the adjoining checkpoints, further restricting Palestinians’ rights to free movement and worship in and around the mosque. ISM activists were also informed by the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) that teargas was being fired at Palestinian children by Israeli Forces outside Saleymeh checkpoint. Whilst the checkpoint nearby the Ibrahimi Mosque had reopened for Friday Prayers, Palestinians continue to face long delays and harrassment at the hands of Israeli forces.

The checkpoint leading to the Ibrahimi Mosque was closed on Wednesday, an barricaded with an upturned table.

Palestinian residents are made to wait outside the Ibrahimi Mosque checkpoint following its reopening on Friday.

Meanwhile that day, Israeli forces gathered outside Shuhada checkpoint for over five hours, shutting down a whole road in H1 to allow (often heavily armed) Israeli settlers and tourists to pass through the area. Two military vehicles blocked the road, causing significant traffic congestion along Bab es-Sawiyah, while upwards of ten Israeli soldiers and fifteen Border Police filmed internationals and prevented Palestinians from passing through. Shuhada checkpoint leads to Shuhada Street, an area where Palestinian vehicles – including ambulances – are forbidden. Palestinians are only allowed to enter the street if they are numbered and registered as residents of the area.

On both Wednesday and Thursday, the Palestinian-owned shops surrounding the Ibrahimi Mosque were ordered to close. Further closures and roadblocks were also imposed by Israeli forces during several incursions by large groups of colonial settlers which passed through the souk in Hebron’s Old Town. Whilst these settler ‘tours’ happen every Saturday in al-Khalil, this week’s incursions follow similar events in occupied Palestine this week, most notably in occupied East Jerusalem where 385 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa.

A group of colonial settlers make their way through the Palestinian souk, escorted by heavily armed Israeli forces.

This year, Pesach is celebrated from the evening of Monday, April 10th, until the evening of Tuesday, April 18th. For Israeli settlers, the holiday this year has an additional significance in marking the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of Rabbi Moshe Levinger and followers of the Greater Israel movement – the first colonial settlers in al-Khalil – to the Park Hotel in 1967, posing as Swiss tourists. Today, around 700 colonial settlers live in the H2 area of al-Khalil and are accompanied by almost 1,500 Israeli soldiers as well as Border Police and Israeli civil police.

AUTHOR: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

DATE: APRIL 15, 2017

Israeli soldiers walk down the stairs of the family home, where some of the children wait, after occupying the roof.

A Palestinian family living in the Old City of al-Khalil were subject to nightly home intrusions by Israeli forces throughout the week leading up to Pesach, or Passover. On Wednesday 12th April, ISM activists visited the home on Shalallah Street before staying with the family overnight to monitor the situation.

The father of the family told ISM activists how six soldiers would arrive at the house at roughly 2 am, banging aggressively on the door with their M16 rifles before forcibly making their way up to the roof of the family home. These incursions occurred several times throughout the week as the same soldiers would arrive in the middle of the night to access and occupy the roof where they would sit for just one hour before leaving again through the family home.

The father believes these nightly intrusions come as punishment from Israeli forces in response to him welcoming tour groups and tourists onto his roof to witness the family’s situation. The rooftop overlooks the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah – from which members of the family often experience harassment from neighboring colonial settlers – as well as the nearby Israeli military outpost.

The family has eight small children, all of whom are frequently woken-up scared at the sight and sounds of Israeli soldiers entering the home. The intrusions occurred all week before culminating on Wednesday the 12th of April when Israeli forces – this time consisting of eleven soldiers and two dogs – appeared at the house a total of four times throughout the day.

The entrance to the family home, located between Shuhada Street and Shalallah Street. To the left of the house is the playground for the children of Israeli settlers.

The past week in Khalil has been characterized by an increased military presence, house intrusions, closures, and harassment as Israeli settlers and tourists celebrate the Jewish holiday of Pesach. However, incidents such as these are not unique, as many Palestinian families living close to illegal Israeli settlements or outposts across the occupied West Bank often experience night raids, vandalism, and harassment at the hands of both colonial settlers and Israeli soldiers.

AUTHOR: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

DATE: APRIL 15, 2017

ISM activists spoke to Badee Dwaik the day following his release from Ofer military court.

Last week, amidst a slew of arrests by Israeli forces and subsequent court hearings, ISM activists had the opportunity to meet with Badee Dwaik; one of the four men arrested during the Land Day demonstrations in occupied al-Khalil. Badee, a seasoned activist of many decades and committee member of the Dismantle the Ghetto campaign, believes his arrest was targeted and spoke of how conditions inside the jails were “worse than they’ve ever been before” during his four nights of detention.

ISM activists spoke to Badee Dwaik the day following his release from Ofer military court.

The peaceful Land Day actions began with the planting of olive trees near Kiryat Arba – an illegal settlement of roughly 8,000 people in occupied al-Khalil. The decision to plant olive trees was made because, as Badee put it, “we fear this land will be confiscated in the near future.” Throughout the action, many settlers attempted to provoke the demonstrators with violence, but nobody gave in: “They try to break us or block us but we ignore it and the army does nothing,” Badee says. He’s only a day out of jail, but seems calm and eager to tell his story. Every so often he takes breaks from talking to put a hand on his ribs, where he says they beat him.

“After we planted the trees, we marched up to the hill where we continued to protest,” where one of the soldiers held a sheet of paper which – as revealed during military court hearing – declared the area a “closed military zone.” Out of nowhere, Israeli forces began pursuing individual demonstrators and Badee found himself on the ground beneath a group of soldiers who beat and arrested him. Those detained by Israeli soldiers were taken down the hill, where Israeli police and Border Police were waiting: “They took us to the police. I was surprised to see Annan there.” It had appeared that the soldiers knew exactly who they wanted to arrest, and picked them from the crowd. They arrested three active members of the Dismantle the Ghetto campaign in what Badee believes to be part of a wider effort by the Israeli occupiers to silence the campaign and put an end to their non-violent demonstrations.

An Israeli soldier films demonstrators whilst holding a piece of paper declaring the area a Closed Military Zone during the Land Day action in al-Khalil. This image was taken an hour after the arrests made that day.

During their time in jail, Badee spoke of how the Israeli guards sometimes would not give the detainees their meals and did not administer Badee’s diabetes medication. When he told the guards that he suffers from diabetes, they told him “it’s not our business to bring your medication to you.” Only after being moved to another prison later that week was he taken the the medical doctor who told him he was at serious risk and he was injected with insulin on the premises. Badee was then moved to a third jail, where he said he was subject to conditions he had never experienced before. “The conditions were bad. When we arrived to this jail they made us throw our belongings away.” Here, Israeli guards made the men remove their clothing and do humilating acts while naked. When Badee refused, he was punished for it later: “We had no mattresses. We slept on the metal. They didn’t feed us a few meals and only gave cigarettes to those who cooperated with him.”

Afte four nights of detention, Badee was sat before Ofer military court, near Ramallah, on spurious charges largely based on a “secret file.” “I’ve never seen this [secret file],” he said, and was alarmed at the allegations they presented. Badee is convinced that there’s an initiative to break their coalition. The judge claimed Badee and the others were “dangerous, holding an illegal demonstration” and that the Israeli state should be “harder on these men,” however his lawyer managed to negotiate their release late that night on the condition that they paid 3,500 shekels per person. When Badee and the others were finally freed, many of their belongings had been stolen.

Whilst Israeli settlers living in the West Bank are subject to Israeli civil law, the Palestinian population lives under Israeli military law. Under this law, Palestinians like Badee can be held indefinitely in ‘administrative detention‘: detained without trail and often based on secret information. There are currently 500 administrative detainees in occupied Palestine.

AUTHOR: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT, GAZA TEAM

Date: April 16, 2017

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the death of Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and an italian activist working with the International Solidarity Movement, in Gaza.

Arrigoni first went to Gaza in 2008, on an activist-organised flotilla seeking to defy the Israeli blockade over Gaza, imposed two years before. On April 16th 2011, when Arrigoni was 36 years old, his body was found in Gaza city, only a few hours after “The Brigade of the Gallant Companion of the Prophet Mohammad bin Muslima”, a Salafist group operating in Gaza, released the video where he was blindfolded and wounded. After investigations, his alleged murderers were arrested and sentenced to life-imprisonment (15 years after appeal).

Vittorio “Vik” Arrigoni wearing a kaffiyeh.

Vittorio Arrigoni was one of the international activists present in Gaza during Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip in 2008-09, while volunteering with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and was one of the few international voices dispatching information during the attacks, especially after Israel banned the entry of journalists into the territory.

For almost his 3 years living in the Gaza Strip, Arrigoni was a committed ISM activist, working in solidarity with farmers and fishermen, whose lives were being severely constrained by the blockade. His presence in protests and demonstrations allowed him to document and report the impact of the blockade, warfare and human rights violations in that territory. Arrigoni’s involvement with the Palestinian struggle made him a target for arrest and injuries by the Israeli military several times, and also led him to volunteer in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon.

After breaking the blockade in 2008, Arrigoni described that moment as being on of the happiest of his life, as “it became clear, not only to the world, but Palestinians also, that there are people who are willing to spend their lives to come and hug their brothers here in Gaza.”.

As it has been happening every year, Palestinians have commemorated the sixth anniversary of Vittorio Arrigoni’s death yesterday, by gathering in the port of Gaza. Vittorio’s memory is also honored in Gaza by the street and school that carry his name. Some of his thoughts on his experience in Gaza and on the solidarity with the Palestinian people have also been collected and turned into a book, “Gaza: Stay Human” (a nod to the way Vittorio used to sign his emails), first published in 2011.

ISM mourns this loss and hopes to honor Vittorio’s death by supporting and showing solidarity to the Palestinian people in their daily, non-violent resistance to the blockade in Gaza and the occupation.

“We must remain human, even in the most difficult times … Because, despite everything, there must always be humanity within us. We have to bring it to others.”

Author: Marwan Barghouti

Date: April 17, 2017

Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike.

Some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have decided to take part in this hunger strike, which begins today, the day we observe here as Prisoners’ Day. Hunger striking is the most peaceful form of resistance available. It inflicts pain solely on those who participate and on their loved ones, in the hopes that their empty stomachs and their sacrifice will help the message resonate beyond the confines of their dark cells.

Decades of experience have proved that Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.

Israel, the occupying power, has violated international law in multiple ways for nearly 70 years, and yet has been granted impunity for its actions. It has committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions against the Palestinian people; the prisoners, including men, women and children, are no exception.
Continue reading the main story

I was only 15 when I was first imprisoned. I was barely 18 when an Israeli interrogator forced me to spread my legs while I stood naked in the interrogation room, before hitting my genitals. I passed out from the pain, and the resulting fall left an everlasting scar on my forehead. The interrogator mocked me afterward, saying that I would never procreate because people like me give birth only to terrorists and murderers.

A few years later, I was again in an Israeli prison, leading a hunger strike, when my first son was born. Instead of the sweets we usually distribute to celebrate such news, I handed out salt to the other prisoners. When he was barely 18, he in turn was arrested and spent four years in Israeli prisons.

The eldest of my four children is now a man of 31. Yet here I still am, pursuing this struggle for freedom along with thousands of prisoners, millions of Palestinians and the support of so many around the world. What is it with the arrogance of the occupier and the oppressor and their backers that makes them deaf to this simple truth: Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.

Israel has built nearly all of its prisons inside Israel rather than in the occupied territory. In doing so, it has unlawfully and forcibly transferred Palestinian civilians into captivity, and has used this situation to restrict family visits and to inflict suffering on prisoners through long transports under cruel conditions. It turned basic rights that should be guaranteed under international law — including some painfully secured through previous hunger strikes — into privileges its prison service decides to grant us or deprive us of.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and medical negligence. Some have been killed while in detention. According to the latest count from the Palestinian Prisoners Club, about 200 Palestinian prisoners have died since 1967 because of such actions. Palestinian prisoners and their families also remain a primary target of Israel’s policy of imposing collective punishments.

Through our hunger strike, we seek an end to these abuses.

Over the past five decades, according to the human rights group Addameer, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel — equivalent to about 40 percent of the Palestinian territory’s male population. Today, about 6,500 are still imprisoned, among them some who have the dismal distinction of holding world records for the longest periods in detention of political prisoners. There is hardly a single family in Palestine that has not endured the suffering caused by the imprisonment of one or several of its members.

How to account for this unbelievable state of affairs?

Israel has established a dual legal regime, a form of judicial apartheid, that provides virtual impunity for Israelis who commit crimes against Palestinians, while criminalizing Palestinian presence and resistance. Israel’s courts are a charade of justice, clearly instruments of colonial, military occupation. According to the State Department, the conviction rate for Palestinians in the military courts is nearly 90 percent.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel has taken captive are children, women, parliamentarians, activists, journalists, human rights defenders, academics, political figures, militants, bystanders, family members of prisoners. And all with one aim: to bury the legitimate aspirations of an entire nation.

Instead, though, Israel’s prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom.

Israel has tried to brand us all as terrorists to legitimize its violations, including mass arbitrary arrests, torture, punitive measures and severe restrictions. As part of Israel’s effort to undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom, an Israeli court sentenced me to five life sentences and 40 years in prison in a political show trial that was denounced by international observers.

Israel is not the first occupying or colonial power to resort to such expedients. Every national liberation movement in history can recall similar practices. This is why so many people who have fought against oppression, colonialism and apartheid stand with us. The International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners that the anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada and my wife, Fadwa, inaugurated in 2013 from Nelson Mandela’s former cell on Robben Island has enjoyed the support of eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, 120 governments and hundreds of leaders, parliamentarians, artists and academics around the world.

Their solidarity exposes Israel’s moral and political failure. Rights are not bestowed by an oppressor. Freedom and dignity are universal rights that are inherent in humanity, to be enjoyed by every nation and all human beings. Palestinians will not be an exception. Only ending occupation will end this injustice and mark the birth of peace.

Welcome to NorCal ISM

Northern California branch of the Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.
Founded in August, 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force.